RS

MEMBER DIARY

IT’s REIGNING TAKERS!

As Uncle Gino used to say, “De House Never Loses, so if you wanna win, you godda be de House.” For years we’ve allowed The banking Houses to deposit in our House of Congress, and the House of America that Lincoln held together is slipping suspiciously close to perishing from this earth. Banks! Can’t live with them, can’t live without them. WRONG! Banks can’t possibly live without US, and it’s time “We the People” produced a new deck, reshuffled and became “The House” again.
Alert the Media: Our story is far more important than gossiping talking head pundits. After standing at hospital bed of my chain smoker brother, on the long drive home I had yet another game playing telephone conversation with a bank from whom accountability slides off faster than an oil slick balm. I’m writing today for your friends, neighbors, grandparents, but mostly each Dad and Mom. If you’ve heard this before, don’t stop me, read on and Alert the Media, before banks conduct our last song.
Although this story is the unauthorized bio slice of many of you, it is the true home owners’ story of my parents too. In January 2008, I realized Dad’s declining health was not only an emotional hell, but upon his death, my Mother would suffer financially as well. So considering the options of retired federal government employees, I called their mortgage banker with our pleas. The response was two years and five months of masterful dodges, a roller coaster ride of good cop/bad cop routines through a contrived maze of deception and condescension. What started four months before my father’s death, ended twenty-five months after his final breath.
The Friday before Mother’s Day, I got the congratulatory call. My Mother’s mortgage modification had been approved with a “sizable reduction.” This was a Mother’s Day gift he said. After more than two years, I felt elation. Last week I received the paper work to sign, seal and deliver, by June 1, 2010, with a check. However as in Jan ’09, there was a mistake, for Mom’s monthly payments had been $1,249.54 and despite the call, the new paper work offered a “three month trial” period to determine if Mom would qualify for the modification after all. Believing in typos, I called and called, and crossed my fingers until Mon 5/24. The “offer of a $1,248.20 was far from a mistake,” he proposed, in a “let them eat cake” drone. “But, there’s hardly a difference, I had to intone. His response, “They, (that’s right he actually said THEY) have determined that your mother can pay 31% of her monthly retirement.”
Finally I got him to identify “they.” “It’s the US Treasury Department.” Perplexed, I asked when this had happened. He said the program “came out in late 2009.” “But, I explained, “we had been promised twice in ’08 & ’09, long before the program opined. There was a brief pause and then, “I have no idea what happened to your application back then.”
Hearing Uncle Gino in my ear, I realized, had the Bank not delayed the process, my Mother would have nothing to fear. So bailouts not being enough for them, they now collect it on both ends, supplemented by government’s 31% mandate regardless of realistic household expenses of food, medical care and prescriptions…This for a Veteran’s widow. Invading my silence, he made clear, “if your Mother qualifies for the government program, we don’t offer anything else.” Remember the Bank CEOs flipping off the Congress earlier this year, whispered Uncle Gino in my ear?
There was a smirk in his voice when he ended the conversation with, “you have an offer of modification which you can accept or not.” “What choice do I have,” I asked, and he actually said, “I guess you don’t have a choice.” “I’ve looked at all the numbers, he insisted.” “Not all of them” I persisted. Proudly he confessed, “I’m not interested in the other slices in your Mother’s monthly expenses, I only looked at the numbers to determine whether or not she qualifies for a modification to pay her mortgage.”
MISSION POSSIBLE: “We the People” must become “The House.” The only way to stop any Goliath is as simple as a David’s stone: Take your money out of Wachovia, Wells Fargo, Citi, Bank of America et.al. and invest in your local Credit Union or Community Savings and Loan. If we want to prevent future oils spills etc, we must interrupt the cash flow of banks. The “tie that binds” ALL Americans as one is, big Banks help Corporations corrupt our government and eject Americans from their homes. Both Left and Right need join hands in union, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Then “United We Stand” against the takeover of our United States of America by the Banksta “Enemies of the People.”
“Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide, In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side; Some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight, And the choice goes by forever, ’twixt that darkness and that light.”
Demand the Media tell the stories of our Dads and Moms, instead of Secrets, Lies and Whispers!